COLUMBUS — Urban Meyer did his best to deflect questions he didn’t want to address — or maybe even think about — on Monday as his Ohio State football team began its preparation for its final home game of the season Saturday against Indiana.
With his 10-0 Buckeyes clinging to a .001 lead over fourth-ranked Baylor in the most recent BCS standings, Meyer was asked about a perceived sense of failure should Ohio State not play for a national championship this season.
“Ezekiel (Elliott) on our punt team. I have to teach him how to tackle,” Meyer said, evading the question with the subtlety of a cannonball into a wading pool.
Minutes later, the question of underclassmen leaving early for the NFL was broached, with the name of junior quarterback Braxton Miller being brought up and whether Meyer felt Miller needed another year of college football.
Meyer mumbled, then shifted his eyes toward the back of the room searching — or hoping — for another line of questioning.
With the regular season winding down, the pressure is on Ohio State. The Buckeyes are one win away from setting a school record for consecutive wins (23). They need three more victories and some help in the form of Alabama and/or Florida State losing a game in order to play for a BCS national championship. They’re preparing to send 18 seniors out of Ohio Stadium on Saturday for senior day festivities.
But before any of those issues are confronted, the Buckeyes have a serious issue to deal with this week.
Injuries.
In the aftermath of Ohio State’s 60-35 win over Illinois on Saturday, Meyer on Monday rattled off a list of scholarship players who have missed or are still missing time because of injuries.
How bad has it gotten?
“We traveled, I want to say, four walk-ons that never played (to) Illinois,” Meyer said, “Cause if something happens, they’re going in the game.”
Out for the year are Adam Griffin, Jamie Wood, Blake Thomas, Jayme Thompson, James Clark, Christian Bryant, Mike Hill, Antonio Underwood and Donovan Munger.
A whole slew of others, including Curtis Grant, Jordan Hall, Darron Lee, Joshua Perry, Jack Mewhort, Joey Bosa, Tommy Schutt and Adolphus Washington, are among the players fighting injuries.
“We had to put a guy at (middle) linebacker. Cam Williams never played Mike linebacker. Has always been an outside guy,” Meyer said. “Joe Burger, in his second year in the program from Cincinnati, was playing for us.”
Meyer said he is hoping Ohio State will get some of those aforementioned players back as soon as this week. If not, then the learning curve will have to be ratcheted up considerably among the young folks.
“We’re beat up a little bit,” Meyer said. “Right now we’re just going through it.”
The shortage of scholarship players, whether it because of injuries or in part because of OSU’s scholarship reduction penalty from NCAA sanctions, was evident the most on special teams on Saturday in Champaign.
Among Illinois’ five touchdowns was a 67-yard punt return for a touchdown. The Illini averaged 25 yards per punt return and 13 yards per kickoff return.
There were times coverage looked iffy, as if the players didn’t know what they were doing. Frankly, many didn’t.
Meyer said five of the 10 players (besides punter Cameron Johnston) on punt coverage are offensive starters who probably have never had to cover punts in their lives.
“We’re asking offensive players to tackle right now. You saw what happened when you ask to do that,” Meyer said. “Our emphasis is on teaching people how to tackle. ... Punt, you go down and tackle. When guys have never tackled in their career, that’s bad coaching by us.”
Options are two-fold, such as taking a redshirt off a freshman who hasn’t played to this point. That’s not a great option because if they haven’t played through the first 10 games, it’s difficult to justify activating them now and burning the redshirt season.
The other option is coaching.
Getting healthy would help, too.
“(Running back) Warren Ball is running down on kickoff. He’s the No. 2 guy in the boundary,” Meyer said. “When you run a boundary run, your job is to spill the lead blocker. He hasn’t done that in his high school career. We’re going to work hard on that in practice.”
Personnel issues aside, Meyer is happy with where the Buckeyes are as they look for their 11th win of the season against 4-6 (2-4 in the Big Ten) Indiana.
Meyer was happy with Ohio State running for more than 400 yards at Illinois, with much of the credit going to the Buckeyes’ offensive line Meyer said he would put up against anyone in the country.
Running back Carlos Hyde is coming off a 250-yard, five-touchdown game, while quarterback Braxton Miller continues to progress despite throwing for only 150 yards against the Illini.
Meyer said he likes the trajectory of his team’s offense.
“Offensively, I do,” he said. “(Defensively), we have to get guys back. (Linebackers) Josh Perry and Curtis Grant, we have to get them back. We have to, or we’ve got a problem.
“That’s our focus, getting better.”
Immediately after the Illinois game, Meyer said he wanted the Buckeyes to enjoy the taste of victory rather than micromanage or nitpick perceived shortcomings.
His assistants agreed Monday.
Assistant Everitt Withers noted the OSU defense gave up less than 300 yards despite Illinois throwing 50 times. Offensive coordinator Tom Herman, who came to OSU from Iowa State, indicated perception in Columbus is different than in Ames, Iowa.
“You’re saying at Iowa State if we scored 60 and had 600 yards of offense, we’d feel a little bit differently on Monday than we do at Ohio State?” he asked rhetorically.
So despite the injuries, the BCS microscope and the national perception that Ohio State might not be title contenders, the Buckeyes like where they are right now.
“We had victory meal (Sunday) night — 22nd time (in a row) they got to go eat victory meal,” Meyer said. “We got to get better in certain areas. But we also appreciate where we’re at.”

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About the Author

John grew up on a dairy farm in southern Ashtabula County, and is a graduate of Grand Valley High School and Ohio State University. Reach the author at jkampf@morningjournal.com
or follow John on Twitter: @JKBuckeyes.